The weak are meek, if she had been meek would she have accomplished anything for her beliefs & the beliefs of millions of those in Pakistan.

All I can hope is that someone follows her legacy & that this is not forgotten. She was only a moderate; her views were not extreme. Now what is the alternative for Pakistan. Is there no compromise by whoever had this done? This is a very serious time for Pakistan.

The weak are meek, if she had been meek would she have accomplished anything for her beliefs & the beliefs of millions of those in Pakistan.

All I can hope is that someone follows her legacy & that this is not forgotten. She was only a moderate; her views were not extreme. Now what is the alternative for Pakistan. Is there no compromise by whoever had this done? This is a very serious time for Pakistan.

Obviously you don't understand what meekness is.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe". - Carl Sagan

Back to the OP, it seems that violence has broken out (virtually immediately) in response. It is expected that martial law may be declared. The election may be postponed. Elsewhere (i.e. the states), today's event has been pounced upon by hopeful presidential candidates whilst Bush extends what sounds suspiciously like inebriated condolences.

It appears that one individual was determined to de-stabilise current political events in Pakistan. What sort of investigation is to be expected? Will journalists be able to report candidly the events surrounding the assassination? Were terrorist groups involved? Were other political leaders involved?

I too remember being stunned by Mrs. Ghandi's assassination. India is, I think, a very stable democracy, and can weather such storms. Pakistan seems to be a different matter.

This is terribly sad and awful. The goal of the perpetrators, presumably, is to cause chaos, and provoke retaliation which might eventually allow the fundamentalists to take control. I've mentioned before, in another thread, that a fundamentalist takeover in Pakistan could conceivably lead to that country's nuclear weapons being aimed at Israel. This is not an impossible scenario. Israel of course would feel a responsibility to its people to preempt any such attack. The implications could be horrific.

I too remember being stunned by Mrs. Ghandi's assassination. India is, I think, a very stable democracy, and can weather such storms. Pakistan seems to be a different matter.

This is terribly sad and awful. The goal of the perpetrators, presumably, is to cause chaos, and provoke retaliation which might eventually allow the fundamentalists to take control. I've mentioned before, in another thread, that a fundamentalist takeover in Pakistan could conceivably lead to that country's nuclear weapons being aimed at Israel. This is not an impossible scenario. Israel of course would feel a responsibility to its people to preempt any such attack. The implications could be horrific.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. You've got me thinking about this now.

OTOH I suspect that Musharraf (Dubya's good friend "The General") may well make capital of this. He's declared 3 days of mourning, but I'm guessing the elections will go ahead, and he'll win big.

Eventually, like Zia, he will die - possibly killed. That's when it will go to hell in a handbasket. Those nukes will be very very scary. I hold no particular brief for Israel (and in general sympathise with the plight of the Palestinians against the Greater Zion-ists), but I agree - it will not be able to sit by inactive if there's a nuclear threat from Pakistan.

A lot of this stuff is, of course, America's reaping (and no doubt the UK's too) - why oh why support non-democratic regimes in the name of realpolitik? What integrity will you have left and what moral authority?

Musharraf has seemed to play something of the same game that Hussein played - do not upset Washington yet appear strong towards neighbours. He and Bush have met recently, he bowed to pressure from the US to step down as army chief.

He claims to be an ally of the US. If a strike against Israel is in the cards, surely other major events (breaking ties, etc) will transpire first.

I wasn't suggesting Pakistan under Musharraf's control would strike at Israel, but that if he lost control, either by being killed or by Al Qaeda sympathizers already operating within the army simply taking control of the nukes, it could happen.

Yes, but surely there is a considerable pro-musharraf sentiment in the country, not to mention the military. It is a frightening thought, but it still seems that such a strike from Iran is more likely..... given their rumblings.

Yes, but surely there is a considerable pro-musharraf sentiment in the country, not to mention the military. It is a frightening thought, but it still seems that such a strike from Iran is more likely..... given their rumblings.

Does Iran have a nuclear weapon and a delivery system? I thought they were still several years away from having a bomb.

Pakistan has 50 - 100 weapons lying about the country, and considerable motivation to stay friendly to the US. On the other hand Iran has openly declared that Israel should be wiped off the map. They don't have a bomb.

For either to strike at Israel, certain events would have to unravel first. Bhutto's assassination is destabilising, but given that she was exiled until last fall I don't see how her death is necessarily particularly ominous in terms of nuclear attacks on other countries. Seems more likely that Musharraf will attempt to consolidate some power as a result, and the US appears to be OK with that (ie encouraging a go-ahead with elections which will certainly give Musharraf more time in office.)

Edit:

And the PPP now recognises Bilawal as leader of the party..... Dynastic democracy?

I see Bhutto's murder as just another element in Al Qaeda's efforts to destabilize the region. We can "what if?" forever, I suppose. It seems to me that Iran's posturing is far less of a potential threat to Israel, or to stability in the region, than the potential for Al Qaeda to get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear button.

In other news: I just watched Mike Huckabee on Meet the Press. He said if he is elected president he would send American troops into the tribal areas, with or without Pakistan's consent, to find and kill Bin Laden. When pressed by Tim Russert he seemed to back off a bit. Considering we don't know where Bin Laden is, that we don't have the support of the locals, and that the Al Qaeda network (like the IRA of old) is largely decentralized with autonomous cells, this seems like an absurd and dangerous threat. Oh, jeeze, Huckabee as a possibility for president - tell me it ain't so.

According to Novak (is he a reliable source?) Bush is more responsible than Al Qaeda for Bhutto's assassination.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto followed two months of urgent pleas to the State Department by her representatives for better protection. The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would not let anything happen to her.

That attitude led a Bhutto agent to inform a high-ranking State Department official that her camp no longer viewed the backstage U.S. effort to broker a power-sharing agreement between Musharraf and the former prime minister as a good-faith effort toward democracy. It was, according to the written complaint, an attempt to preserve the politically endangered Musharraf as George W. Bush's man in Islamabad.

President Bush confirmed that judgment with his statement Thursday, within hours of learning that Bhutto was dead, when he urged that the elections scheduled for Jan. 8 be held in furtherance of Pakistani "democracy." That may be Musharraf's position, but it definitely is not the position of his critics. They believed the election would be a sham with Bhutto dead and with Saudi-backed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif boycotting the balloting, though Sharif's party reversed course yesterday.

and...

A more sinister fallout of a free hand from Washington for Pakistan might be Bhutto's murder. Neither her shooting on Thursday nor the attempt on her life Oct. 18 bore the trademarks of al-Qaeda. After the carnage, government trucks used streams of water to clean up the blood and, in the process, destroyed forensic evidence. If not too late, would an offer and acceptance of investigation by the FBI be in order?

Neither her shooting on Thursday nor the attempt on her life Oct. 18 bore the trademarks of al-Qaeda.

That is interesting. I was wondering why Musharraf was so determined to claim she was NOT shot but was killed by the effects of the explosion. Shooting with a handgun does not seem typical of Al Qaeda. On the other hand, cell phone intercepts allegedly point at Al Qaeda.

The U.S. reaction was that she was worried over nothing, expressing assurance that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf would not let anything happen to her.

The claim while she was under house arrest - that they were keeping her there for her own protection - kind of seemed like a veiled threat. "We can't be responsible for your safety if you leave your house."

I'm waiting for the next president of the USA to start making those kinds of threats. "We can't be sure a nuke won't make it over the border if you don't surrender your right to free assembly/speech/habeas corpus." Then a nuke goes off in some no-where small town with the CIA's signature all over it. (Or maybe Mossad)

Pakistan has 50 - 100 weapons lying about the country, and considerable motivation to stay friendly to the US. On the other hand Iran has openly declared that Israel should be wiped off the map. They don't have a bomb.

This may simply be because Iran appears to have a unitary government. It was only after we started on the route to the slaying of Saddam that we realised (Oh dear me) that Iraq did not speak with one voice. Pakistan has the semblance of a free press and it shows quite clearly that there is no 'single' Pakistan with motivation to keep the States on-side. All it takes is for one faction or another to wrest control and "bye bye" moderation.

Originally Posted by free radical

And the PPP now recognises Bilawal as leader of the party..... Dynastic democracy?

It's the South Asian way - India has done it for longer and is still doing it with the Nehru's showing no signs of going away.

Pakistan has 50 - 100 weapons lying about the country, and considerable motivation to stay friendly to the US. On the other hand Iran has openly declared that Israel should be wiped off the map. They don't have a bomb.

This may simply be because Iran appears to have a unitary government. It was only after we started on the route to the slaying of Saddam that we realised (Oh dear me) that Iraq did not speak with one voice. Pakistan has the semblance of a free press and it shows quite clearly that there is no 'single' Pakistan with motivation to keep the States on-side. All it takes is for one faction or another to wrest control and "bye bye" moderation.

Which shows you the advantage of allowing dictatorships in the third world. It's the only way uneducated and illiterate people will ever march in step (other than to become literate and educated).

Pakistan has 50 - 100 weapons lying about the country, and considerable motivation to stay friendly to the US. On the other hand Iran has openly declared that Israel should be wiped off the map. They don't have a bomb.

This may simply be because Iran appears to have a unitary government. It was only after we started on the route to the slaying of Saddam that we realised (Oh dear me) that Iraq did not speak with one voice. Pakistan has the semblance of a free press and it shows quite clearly that there is no 'single' Pakistan with motivation to keep the States on-side. All it takes is for one faction or another to wrest control and "bye bye" moderation.

Which shows you the advantage of allowing dictatorships in the third world. It's the only way uneducated and illiterate people will ever march in step (other than to become literate and educated).

A logical, and I suppose, valid conclusion - but not a step I would wish to recommend. Too depressing a thought.

She was warned and previous attempts on her life were made, her dad (and brother?) were assassinated, living in a muslim country where the women seem to treated worse than domestic animals where the men seem to have a dislike to being told what they can and cannot do (especially) by a woman. Harsh but sadly all true assassination no - suicide yes.